Converted Steam Radiator to Hot water -fed from steam boiler- worried about short cycling

NO2nice

I am in the middle of a renovation and I'm using a hot water loop that used to feed about 35' of baseboard in my old family room to heat a steam radiator that I flushed and plugged. The rest of the house is a 1 pipe steam system and my boiler is a Weil-Mclain 160000BTU steam boiler. The radiator works fine to heat my temp kitchen area but I'm worried that the boiler will have sustained flue gas condensation because i hear it turn on just to keep the hot water temperature at 180 but it doesn't run for very long. The radiator also seems to stay warm even when the circulator is off. The loop does not have a check valve but I would be surprised if the water is circulating by gravity because the loop has a long horizontal component.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

NO2nice

Any ideas or help out there?

kcopp

I would not worry about the flue condensation. 180 is well above that temp.

Mark N

I'm not a pro, but why is it running to maintain 180 degrees. Shouldn't it only run when the zone calls for heat and have an aquastat that turns off the boiler when the water temp hits 180 degrees.

JohnNY

You'd get better answers if you could post a pic of the piping around the boiler. I don't like systems like this that fire the boiler just to maintain an internal temperature for a single little zone.
Very wasteful.
What part of the country are you in?

NO2nice

Thanks for the responses. I live in Long Island and that zone circulator only operates when the thermostat calls for heat. It is very wasteful but it is just temporary. The renovation we are doing is running through the heating season and thats why I was worried about the flue gas condensation. The radiator (10 tube 22" wide EDR-22.5) I am using is not keeping up with the heating for the kitchen and that circulator is on most of the time so when the boiler water drops enough the burners turn on for a few minutes and then turn off. I'm worried that the chimney never gets hot enough to burn off the condensation.
My other question is that the radiator will seem hot sometimes even when the circulator is off. My basement is cold now so i know if the water wasn't moving it would be cooled off quick. Didn't know if there was a good explanation. I took some pictures of the existing setup and I will be uploading my whole house design in a couple days to see if anyone wants to take a look at it. I connected the radiator using Pex, the hot water baseboard loop looks like it was piped right with the expansion tank, regulator, fast fill, purge valves and air separators but its missing check valve.

any thoughts or past experience help would be appreciated.